Delamination buckling and growth in a clamped circular plate

Abstract

The paper presents an elastic postbuckling analysis of a delaminated circular plate under axisymmetric compression along its clamped boundary. Von Karman's equations are assumed to govern the deformation of the delaminated layer, while the deflection of the main body of the plate is described by the linear equations of the classical plate theory. Solution of the boundary-value problem is reduced to repeated numerical integration of two initial-value problems. Certain features of the postbuckling behavior are found to be qualitatively similar to the buckling of an axially loaded beam plate containing a one-dimensional delamination. An analytical expression of the energy-release rate is obtained in terms of the postbuckling solution. The stability of delamination growth under a fixed boundary displacement is examined. The results are compared with the previous results for thin-film circular delamination.